Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF

life towards the exit. I stumble a few steps, that bourbon already blurring my vision, but it's too late. She's gone.
    Shit.
    Kane smiles faintly, ash drifting from his hair. "You'll need it. Dawn tomorrow, Tam."
    As always, sick terror scrapes my nerves. Blunt but effective. He doesn't need to add or else, or anything crude like that. I already know what'll happen if I don't jump to his whims, and anyone who says they're not afraid of hell hasn't been there.
    I swallow salty phlegm, and follow her.
     
    ***
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    Upstairs, Gavain clutches the metal rail, transfixed, watching Tam at the bar. Hunger hollows his guts, cold and desperate like stormwater, but the emptiness is nothing compared to the wintry chasm in his heart.
    Absently he scratches at his forearms, where long-legged yellow bugs no one else can see suck his half-fairy blood, their tiny fangs stinging. He's been to see people about the bugs. Charlatans, vampire shamans, a Chinese herbalist who dripped lavender water in his eyes and forced needles between his fairy-sharp teeth. There are no bugs, Gavain. Forget them. They're all in your mind.
    He drags bloody brown hair from his face, electric noise from the overdriven sound system slashing inside his ears. Kicks the railing, hard, the dull ache ringing in his shin like a painful memory. Should've said something, Christ, he's hit on enough guys to know what to do. Would've, only the pearly-girl turned to smoke, and the fae senses that plague him fever-mad scintillated, so bright it hurt his eyes and he couldn't concentrate on anything else. Could've, if he wasn't so shit scared that his thighs quivered.
    Truth: Tam's a dark god of angry perfection, beautiful, tortured, so excruciatingly human. Gavain's a confused little half-fae whore. This equation does not reduce to zero. Error. Page not found.
    Useless even to dream.
    He stretches his shoulders, where the misshapen bones rub together. It hurts, where his wings should be, a deep ache in both his bones and his heart that nothing ever eases . . . well, almost nothing. Need seizes him, a dark and razor-taloned addiction. He fumbles in his back pocket and there it is, a dirty glass vial with brown grit crusted around the cork. The hellsauce roils inside, warm brown sludge like runny shit, laced with grimy froth.
    Helltrip. His newest and most dangerous craving. A chug and a curse and he'll be there, sliding down and down into darkness and filth and mayhem. Helltripping is still new, just a rumor for most. It's hard to come by, but cheap. Because it isn't really your money the demons want, of course. Just your promise, your obsession, eventually your soul.
    Hell stinks of ash and vomit, the sky bleeding scarlet over the black city like some apocalyptic sunset, and if you can last the night, you can do whatever you want there. Last time, Gavain woke up in a gutter in St Kilda, aching with cramp, covered in come and blood that wasn't his own. He remembers jagged slashing blades, screams, the creamy stink of slaughter, something hot and huge and crumbling fucking him, deep and dry so it hurt.
    Some people are scared shitless of hell. Gavain just knows he belongs there.
    As he slinks down the metal stairs, he fishes out a crumpled orange bill, his last twenty. Excellent-o. A jug of that golden fairy wine first, then, that burns his blood with bittersweet joy. Get drunk, careless, crazy, beaten up, screwed. The usual. There's a twist of shiny foil in his pocket, too, a line or two of crystalblue fairy lust. Sweet. If you're gonna get raped, might as well get so wasted you might enjoy it.
    The bar is crowded, but Tam's already gone. Gavain squeezes in between a muscular green troll in leather and a drunken banshee who eyes him off around a sleek sway of magenta hair, her sweet violet lips whispering a song. He can smell her thoughts, lemon-fresh and curious, same as all the rest. Her name tastes like rose, holly, ruby, something red, and he